


Hide and Seek Squatter Style

by Cobalt_Blue99



Series: Thwip Thwip [2]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But everyone thinks Tony is crazy, He's NOT crazy!, Hide and Seek, Odd Happenings, There is someone in the tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobalt_Blue99/pseuds/Cobalt_Blue99
Summary: The Avengers have a squatter living in the tower. Tony wants to find out who.
Series: Thwip Thwip [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912639
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	Hide and Seek Squatter Style

**Author's Note:**

> Here is another older story of mine. It's longer at the very least. Can't tell you much more than that.

It started off as something that Tony could easily dismiss as his imagination and ignore. The first time it happened, the Avengers came back from a mission and Bruce found an unlocked window in one of the labs. At first, Tony was worried the tower had been compromised. But security footage showed nothing, and JARVIS confirmed that no intruders had been detected. The Avengers even did a thorough sweep of the building and didn’t find anything. So, Tony settled on the simplest answer: one of the interns forgot to lock the window.

See? Easily ignored. But several incidences later... Tony was convinced something was going on.

It was always something small, like a misplaced item or the odd appearance of another. Like the time the expired milk was replaced. None of the Avengers confessed to the act and yet there it was, a new bottle of 2% sitting in the fridge. And Tony could've sworn that someone was using his soldering iron while he was away. But again, security footage and JARVIS both said otherwise.

It was starting to make Tony paranoid.

Thus, he began setting traps whenever the Avengers would go out on missions.

Tony did this for a couple weeks, much to the amusement of his teammates, but nothing ever came of it. Whenever the team came back, the traps were always undisturbed, yet the strange occurrences were still happening.

Like the time they came back from a HYDRA mission and everyone kept tripping on the living room furniture. It appeared as if everything was in the right place, but something still felt... off. Tony had investigated the matter for several days before concluding that all the furniture had been moved two inches to the left.

When he confronted the team, no one owned up to the crime, but Barton couldn't stop laughing and Natasha looked smug for some reason. And again, the security tapes showed nothing.

Tony was starting to reach his wits' end when it finally happened. Undeniable proof that the Avengers were not the tower's only occupants.

The Avengers had just gotten back from a particularly taxing mission and were ready to relax. The team had parted ways with Thor and were now making their way through the long hallways towards the living room sluggishly with Steve taking the lead.

No one was really saying anything; they were all really tired and were looking forward to just collapsing onto the couch.

Tony wasn't really paying much attention as he followed Steve. He was too busy thinking about a few adjustments he needed to make to his suit later, so he didn't notice when the super-soldier stopped directly in front of him.

"Ouch," He snapped rubbing his nose. "Why did you stop?"

Steve didn't answer, he just silently stared into the room.

"What?" Tony asked, trying to peer around the wide-framed soldier.

Steve just cleared his throat and continued walking into the room before dropping to his knee to examine something on the carpet.

"What have you got there?" Tony asked curiously as he walked up behind him.

Tony then saw what he was looking at. "Oh."

Blood. And a fair amount of it too. Far too much for something like a paper cut. Far too much for anything but a relatively large stab wound really. But that wasn't even the weirdest part.

The weirdest part was that there was a large pile of red-stained paper towels and a garbage bag next to the drying puddle, as if someone had been trying to clean up the mess just before they had arrived.

The rest of the Avengers gathered around the stain.

"So, uh," Bruce said slowly as he examined the carnage, "I guess this means you were right about someone being here, huh?"

Tony would be ecstatic that he was right and everyone else was wrong if he didn't know the implications of this.

Someone had been living in the tower without the Avengers knowledge. For at least a month.

Tony thought he saw Clint and Natasha shoot each other a look out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he turned to look at them, they had their poker faces on again.

Stupid spies.

Tony clapped his hands together, drawing the attention of the Avengers. "Okay team, new plan. We're going hunting."

This was met by a chorus of angry "What?!" and "Seriously!"

"Come on man," Clint whined. "Whoever it is has obviously been living here a while. One more day isn't going to hurt. Plus, I am really tired."

He yawned for emphasis.

Tony sighed. "No. We are going to find this guy. They are a security risk that needs to be dealt with. Besides, they are obviously seriously hurt and could quite possibly be dying. I don't want a lawsuit on my hands because I let some idiot die in my building. Now partner up and search the tower top to bottom. No one gets a break until we catch this guy."

Everyone grumbled for a minute before finding a buddy and splitting up, heading off to different sections of the tower. Tony was unsurprisingly paired with Steve. Lately the team had been trying to make sure that a heavy hitter was always partnered with Tony on missions. Tony knew what they were doing and it kind of pissed him off. You get shot one time...

"Let's check the living room," Steve suggested.

Tony nodded. It was as good of place to start as any.

The two of them started searching the room top to bottom, going even as far as moving the furniture to make sure there was nothing underneath it. I mean, you can't be too careful. After all, they did know a guy who could ride ants.

After their search, Tony sighed, defeated. He groaned and ran a hand through his short hair.

"Well," He said sarcastically, "one room down and only a hundred to go."

"Could you ask JARVIS where the intruder is?" Steve asked.

Tony groaned again. "Believe me, I've tried. Here, watch. JARVIS, where is the intruder?"

"There is no intruder in the tower, sir," JARVIS replied coolly.

"See?"

Steve stared at the floor for a minute, thinking. Finally, he asked, "Have you tried asking JARVIS who's all in the tower?"

"Of course, I-" Tony stopped. "JARVIS, who's in the tower?"

"You, Captain Rogers, Mr. Barton, Ms. Romanoff, Dr. Banners, Mr. Wilson, and guest," JARVIS replied.

"Guest?" Tony parroted. "Since when do we have a guest?"

"Guest has been here for forty-three days, sir."

Steve and Tony shot each other a look.

"JARVIS, where is our guest?" Steve asked.

"I am sorry sir," JARVIS replied, sounding a bit regretful, "my protocol does not allow me to answer that question."

Now Tony was starting to get concerned. "Which protocol?"

"Protocol 'Hide and Seek,' sir."

"Override protocol," Tony told the A.I., "code A1102774S."

"Acknowledged. Protocol 'Catch Me If You Can' has now been initiated," JARVIS responded. "Tower systems are going offline for two hours. Good luck, sir."

"Wait, what?!" Tony squawked. Now he was really concerned. What was going on?

"Tony," Steve said worriedly.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony snapped. "I know Steve. JARVIS?"

Tony shouted some choice words when JARVIS didn't answer. Steve shot him a look but didn't say anything. After all, he learned his lesson the last time. To this day, the others would still occasionally make fun of him by shouting "language" anytime he had a slip of the tongue.

Tony finally stopped cussing like a sailor long enough to take a breath. "Okay," He said venomously, "I guess we will just have to find this 'guest' ourselves. Now where should we start looking?"

"We know that he is injured," Steve said slowly. "How about the med bay?"

"Right," Tony said, "let's go then."

The two heroes took the elevator down to the floor with the med bay. As they exited the elevator, they were greeted by an overly cheerful Clint.

"Hey guys," Clint chirped as he strode towards them. "Long time no see!"

"Yeah Barton," Tony said sarcastically. "Talk a little louder, let the whole building know we are here."

"SURE!" The archer yelled loudly; a shit-eating grin plastered to his face. "HEY GUYS! LONG TIME NO SEE!"

Tony and Steve winced.

"I was being sarcastic, Clint," Tony said as he rubbed his ears. "Now be quiet. In case you didn't know, we are trying to catch someone."

Clint just grinned.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked.

"Like you said," Clint sassed, "trying to catch someone. No luck though. Natasha and I already searched med bay. Nothing. Whatta bout you?"

"Ditto," Tony replied. "Wait... Where's Natasha?"

"Behind you."

Tony shrieked at the sudden voice. He turned to face the redhead. "Don't scare me like that! My heart can't take it."

“That assumes you have a heart,” Natasha said coolly as she turned to leave. She tapped Clint on his shoulder as she passed him and said, "This floor is clear. Let's head to the next one."

Clint nodded to her before turning to face the others. He gave them a two-fingered salute before following Natasha to the elevator.

Tony and Steve just watched them go. Once they were out of sight, Steve turned to face Tony.

"They are hiding something," He stated grimly.

"Yeah," Tony said thoughtfully, "I kind of got that."

"You think we should follow them?"

Tony shrugged. "Why not. Which floor did they go to?"

"Four up," Steve responded.

"Okay," Tony said, walking towards the elevator, "let's go."

"Wait," Steve said, grabbing Tony's arm. "Let's take the stairs."

"Why?" Tony asked curiously.

"Clint was waiting for us," Steve said thoughtfully. "He was just standing in front of the elevator and was obviously being loud on purpose. I think he was alerting someone that we were there."

"So, we take the stairs and catch them by surprise!" Tony stated excitedly. "Great idea! You're pretty smart. Not as smart as me of course, but pretty smart."

Steve laughed. "I might not be good at technology like you, Tony. But I do know a thing or two about strategy."

"Guess someone as old as you has had to learn something over the years," Tony teased lightly as the two walked towards the stairs. As the two entered the stairwell he sighed looking up at the massive flights of stairs. "Is it too late to say this is a terrible idea and we should take the elevator?"

Steve shot him a look before starting up the stairs. Tony sighed and followed the soldier up the stairs.

By the time Tony reached the top, he was panting. Of course, Steve had reached the top a while ago, and was barely winded. He gave Tony a minute to catch his breath before slowly pushing open the stairwell exit.

The two of them silently crept through the door and into the hallway before them. This particular floor wasn't anything special. It was mostly just intern labs and conference rooms, and the Avengers almost never came here unless Pepper was using the Avengers conference room, or it had been blown up by a supervillain (again).

Tony and Steve were quietly making their way through the hall before Steve suddenly grabbed Tony and dragged him into one of the open conference rooms.

"Wha-"

Steve covered Tony's mouth quickly and put a finger to his lips to signal silence. He then gestured for Tony to peek out the door. Tony complied, only to see the two spies talking quietly out in front of one of the labs.

"I think I might be able to listen in on their conversation," Tony whispered to Steve.

Tony tapped his earpiece, glad that he had forgotten to take it out after the mission earlier. Its primary use was as a communicator, but Tony got bored one day and turned it into a listening device so that he could spy on his teammates.

He fiddled with the earpiece for a minute until he could hear the conversation clearly.

"-okay?" Clint asked Natasha, the worry evident in his voice.

"He's fine," Natasha confirmed. "Lost a lot of blood, but he'll heal."

Tony sucked in a breath. They knew the intruder. He had known that the spies were both hiding something, but he never could have imagined that they would betray him like this. If they knew who the intruder was, why would they keep it a secret?

Right. They're spies.

"What happened?" Clint questioned.

Natasha crossed her arms. "Apparently some supervillain got a lucky hit in. He came back here and passed out from blood loss. By the time he woke up, he had left half his blood on our carpet and couldn't get it cleaned before we came back."

"I always told Tony that white carpet was a bad idea," Clint said with a sad sigh and a shake of his head. "The guy just wouldn't listen. Oh well. Where'd the kid go?"

"Kid?" Tony muttered. Steve gave him a confused look and was about to ask something when Tony shushed him.

"Back to his room," Natasha replied. "He said something about having an organic chemistry test tomorrow and needing to cram."

"But the others are looking for him?"

Natasha shrugged. "He told me that this test was a matter of life or death. Apparently, if he fails, his GPA will die horribly along with his hopes and dreams. His words, not mine."

Clint let out a laugh. "Yeah, that sounds like him. Anyway, should we check out a few more floors, you know, to avoid suspicion?"

"You can," Natasha said coolly. "I'm going out for dinner. Want to come?"

"But what if he gets caught?" Clint protested. "Shouldn't we be here?"

"It's unlikely he will. But even if he does, it doesn't really matter."

"True..." Clint said thoughtfully. "Sure, why not. Let's go."

Tony and Steve watched as the two spies got into the elevator and left.

Steve turned to Tony and asked, "So, what did you learn?"

"Well," Tony said slowly. "First of all, they kept saying 'he', so that narrows it down to just under half the world's population."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, 'he' was fighting a supervillain apparently and got hurt. Also, they mentioned that 'he' is a kid."

Steve looked deep in thought. Finally, he said, "That narrows it down quite a bit, actually. There aren't too many super-powered kids running around fighting villains."

Tony scoffed. "Ever heard of the X-Men?"

Steve shot him the look again.

Tony cleared his throat. "Also, they mentioned that 'he' went back to his room. So _that_ should narrow things down a bit."

"Right, where do we have vacant rooms?"

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought. The real question was, where _didn't_ he have vacant rooms? After all, he was a billionaire living in one of the most high-tech towers in the world. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he might have went just a little overboard when designing Avengers Tower, with it having just under a hundred floors. Granted, about half of them were conference rooms and lab space, not to mention...

"Got it," Tony said with a grin. "I know where our 'kid' intruder is."

"Okay, where is he?" Steve asked curiously.

"So, remember how there was that little lab accident on floor eighty a few months ago?" Tony said, the grin on his face widening.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, the whole floor is currently out of commission," Tony replied. "I was planning on renovating it instead of repairing the lab, but with the recent crime wave and all those HYDRA bases that popped up I forgot all about it."

Steve's eyes widened, finally getting where Tony was going with this.

"Right," He said excitedly. "That was one of your personal labs. The one with the built-in bedroom. And since both Natasha and Clint know that the whole floor is abandoned..."

"It would be the perfect place to stash a squatter," Tony finished.

"Great job, Tony," Steve praised.

Tony scoffed. "Did you expect anything less? Now come on, we've got an intruder to catch."

The two heroes didn't bother to take the stairs again and instead went for the elevator. The ride was short, under a full minute, but Tony was tapping his foot impatiently the whole time. He was starting to get both excited and nervous at the possibility of finally figuring out who the intruder was. He knew it probably wasn't anyone dangerous considering both Natasha and Clint were obviously in on the whole thing, but still...

How had this guy managed to dodge his security for over a month? JARVIS was _still_ refusing to admit that there was an intruder in the tower. And security cameras never caught anything. How was he doing it?

Tony had to know.

Tony and Steve exited the elevator and cautiously crept through the hallways. Everything looked to be in relatively good shape except for the few scorch marks here and there that attested that something had gone down.

Tony involuntarily shuddered. So much jello.

The two of them headed in the direction of the old lab bedroom. As they approached it, they could see light filtering through a half-opened door.

Steve made a few hand gestures at Tony, who didn't understand them but got the gist that Steve was going in first. He flashed Steve a thumbs up.

Faint mumbling could be heard from inside. Something about organometallic compound reactions and Grignard reagents.

Steve placed his shield on his arm and positioned himself in front of the door. He took a deep breath, then kicked the door open before rushing in.

Tony heard a high-pitched screech followed by a loud, "Steve, what the heck did you do that for?!"

Tony knew that voice. He inhaled sharply and rushed into the room, only to be greeted by the sight of a gangly teenager with unruly brown hair stuck to the ceiling above Steve's head in a makeshift bedroom.

"Kid?!" Tony shouted. "What are you doing here?!"

The one and only Peter Parker snorted. "I live here. Temporarily. I mean, Clint said it was okay as long as you didn't find out. Oh, shit. You found out." His eyes widened. "I'm gonna get kicked out. Dang. I messed up big time."

"Wait," Steve said. "Clint said you could live here. Why?"

Peter looked down at him and opened his mouth to answer but Tony held up a hand to cut him off. "Get off the ceiling before you answer. I'm getting dizzy just looking at you."

Peter flipped off the ceiling with practiced ease.

"Okay," Tony said, looking into the young pair of brown eyes. "Now answer."

"Well, a while ago, my apartment was totally trashed in a villain attack," Peter explained quickly. "I was kinda living with Deadpool for a while, but honestly, he is a horrible roommate." Peter's eyes glassed over. "I have seen things that I can never unsee."

"Get to the point," Tony prompted impatiently.

"Right," Peter said, snapping out of his flashback. "Anyway, so I ran into Hawkeye after one rather... unfortunate... experience and he offered to let me stay at the tower. But only if no one else found out. Of course, Natasha found out like a day later, but whatever. We didn't really expect to be able to keep it a secret from her. I mean, she's the Black Widow! You can't hide anything from her."

"Okay," Tony hissed. "But how did you avoid all my security? It's stopped ninjas and literal gods before."

"Oh, that was easy," Peter remarked cheerfully. "Clint gave me a guest pass and then I hacked JARVIS and changed a few protocols. I had JARVIS loop the cameras whenever I entered a room, then update the footage five minutes after I left. Pretty simple really."

"Hacking JARVIS was easy?" Tony repeated dumbly.

"Yup," Peter chirped. "I found one of your old computers on this floor that was already logged in. From there, it was pretty simple."

"Why would Clint tell you not to tell us?" Steve asked, finally joining into the exasperating conversation.

"I dunno," Peter admitted. "I think he just wanted to mess with all of you. Especially you Tony. Something about hacking his Facebook and liking a bunch of K-pop pages."

Steve turned to face Tony. "What is K-pop?"

Tony waved him off. "Not important." He turned to face Peter. "You know I would have just let you stay here, right? You didn't have to play along with Clint's little game."

Peter's eyes widened. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'," Tony sighed. "Tell you what, you can stay upstairs in one the guest rooms until your apartment is repaired, but only if you fix JARVIS and move the living room furniture back. I'm still stabbing my hip on side table."

Peter's eyes lit up. "Thanks! This is really nice of you, Mr. Stark!"

"Come on, let's go round up the others," Tony said. "I'm exhausted. It's really been a long day."

"Sounds good to me," Peter said with a grin. "By the way, I've been wondering for a while, why does this whole floor smell like orange jello?"


End file.
